The golden age of British sweets - in pictures

The golden age of British sweets - in pictures

Nothing conjures up the bittersweet memories of childhood more keenly than the vanished confectionery of yesteryear. Steve Berry and Phil Norman travel back in time with a survey of the highs and lows of the British sweetshop

Friday 28 September 2012 10.37 EDT
First published on Friday 28 September 2012 10.37 EDT

Spangles (1948)

The same year George Orwell gazed apprehensively into a totalitarian future, Mars unveiled a more upbeat response to post-war austerity with these translucent sugar squares. Over three decades tangerine, butterscotch, 'Old English', cola and dozens more varieties appeared, until their liquidation in ... 1984. Within a couple of years, the tyrannical Big Brothers of lazy observational comedy rewrote history to make Spangles the quintessential component of a Day-glo, bell-bottomed 1970s that has cast a long shadow over the popular culture of Airstrip One ever since

Horror Bags (1975)

Marble, wood, clay – all fine media for the ambitious sculptor. Deep-fried corn starch? Perhaps not so good, but that didn't stop artisans with big ideas trying to tame this Protean gloop in the name of savoury novelty. Smith's, the Michelangelos of maize, scored big with a quintet of crunchy Hammer film signifiers: bones, fangs, claws, ribs and bats, all turning the distortions incurred during cooking into a ghoulish plus. The Snack Expressionist movement had produced its first masterpiece

Nutty (1972)

The early 1970s saw an outbreak of knobbly chocolate logs – Prize, Picnic, Amazin' – all discreetly hidden inside loose-fitting wrappers to conceal their unmistakeable resemblance to, let's say, a different type of log. Only Rowntree's short-lived Nutty dared to flaunt its pre- and post-digestive symmetry in a robe of daringly diaphanous brown cellophane. Throw in an ad campaign in which Kenny Everett tried to sell the bar's inability to stand upright unassisted as a USP, and Nutty's seat in confectionery Valhalla was readied

Pacers (1976)

When Mars punted out a mint variant of their counter-conquering blocks of citrus paste, tolerant half-smiles were the order of the day, but a simple change of name took Opal Mints out from the shadows of their mouth-watering forebears. A sporty theme and the addition in 1980 of green go-faster stripes to the basic white slab more than made up for the disappointingly weak, almost homeopathic, minty taste. But the national tongue soon tires of timid flavours, and the Pacer found itself lapped. At least we still had Opal Fruits ... albeit now appended with the foreboding words 'internationally known as Starburst'

Marathon (1968)

Marathon came to the UK courtesy of Forrest Mars Sr, estranged from the family business in the States, but free to adapt the recipes for European tastes. Aside from his eponymous bar packed with milk, sugar, glucose, and thick, thick chocolate, Mars' Slough-produced cash cow was a peanut-powered derivative of the American Snickers (the name was apparently tribute to the Mars family's favourite horse). Another victim of the MTV generation, via pan-continental satellite television and the associated globalisation of marketing, 'brand alignment' saw Marathon adopt its maiden name in 1990

Quatro (1983)

Quatro was the most notorious of several 1980s attempts to pitch sugary froth to an aspirational teen market. Stats were gathered, groups were focused, ad breaks were booked. The results were a decade distilled: chiselled youths roamed a foggy Blade Runner cityscape, obtaining bespoke laser-hewn cans of the grapefruit, lime, pineapple and orange crush via a steampunk cashpoint. But even a demographic naive enough to count debit cards as cool wouldn't swallow all that, and four years later the account was closed

Flavour 'n' Shake (1975)

An exercise in nostalgia from the outset, Salt 'n' Shake's little blue bag was a conscious throwback to the original flavour enhancer, a condiment-containing wrap of paper lobbed in each packet of Frank Smith's pub-bound, post-war potato crisps. Salt 'n' Shake's fortunes were revived during the decade that taste forgot, as mid-1970s kids revelled in the tastes that previous decades forgot. DIY crisp flavouring became all the rage, although the tipping point was reached with the untempting Flavour 'n' Shake and its assortment of artificial salt and vinegar, tomato sauce, fish and chips or spicy flavours. Acrid, to say the least

Funny Feet (1979)

This self-consciously wacky dollop of moulded strawberry ice cream kicked its Funny Face forerunner into touch courtesy of targeted comic promotion and a series of breathless Kenny Everett-voiced telly ads. In store, adhesive floor stickers paved the way to the freezer cabinet and a million-and-one 'foot in mouth' gags. The raspberry-rippled sequel, Freaky Foot, failed to gain a toehold in the market, despite the presence of a chocolate-coated hallux digit. Wall's boffins continue to dig their heels in and refuse to reissue the fast-melting monoped classic in the UK, although it is still marketed abroad as the slightly too savoury-sounding Frigo Pie

Black Jacks (1920s)

A bitter seam running through the history of sweet-shop tuck is that of casual racism. The Trebor marketing team reached their lowest point with a liquorice and aniseed chew which left a bad taste in the mouth in more ways that one. Black Jacks were, along with Fruit Salad and Matlow's Milk, a sticky stalwart of the 10p mix-up bag. The wrapper, however, sported a stylised, grinning golliwog – American author Florence Kate Upton's unfortunate and untrademarked minstrel doll character – at least, until the 1980s, when a more enlightened approach saw him replaced by a pirate

Neapolitans (1922)

Synonymous with Christmas for anyone under 50, these much-missed mini-choc bars disappeared when manufacturer Terry's of York was gobbled up by multinational food giant, Kraft, in 2005. The foil-paper wrappers and flavours were, however, seared by rote and gluttony into the memory of a generation. Devon Milk, Café Au Lait, Plain Dessert – colour-coded in oranges, browns and aquas, as if to blend into the wallpaper of a 1970s living room – these were tiny Yuletide treats dispensed from a uniquely tapered box. And they had nothing to do with Naples ...